Package Forced NBC to Make Tough Decisions - New York Times

"In an interview last night on MSNBC, Mr. Williams said NBC had been concerned about the sensitivities of broadcasting as much of the material as it did.

“This was a sick business tonight, going on the air with this,” he said."

I wonder: what didn't stop them?

Fact-checking the Gray Lady

"The NYT may also have found the ride a bit rough. There's this vibration, you see, caused by the big spinning three-blade thingies on the front of the engines of GA-ASI's King Air. Memo to NYT. If you really want to get your credibility above the Jayson Blair level, maybe you should assign aerospace stories to someone who knows the difference between a propeller and a jet."

Elizabeth Edwards afraid of neighbor

Johnson, 55, acknowledges his Republican roots. But he takes offense to the suggestion he has purposefully left his property, including an old garage he leases for use as a car shop, in dilapidated condition.

Johnson said he has lived his entire life on the property, which he said his family purchased before the Great Depression. He said he's spent a lot of money to try and fix up the 42-acre tract.

"I have to budget. I have to live within my means," Johnson said. "I don't have millions of dollars to fix the place."

The Coming Tax Increase - WSJ.com

"The new House and Senate majorities have now passed budget resolutions -- five-year budget outlines -- that include the repeal of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Republicans are overstating things when they imply this means a tax increase this year. The Bush tax cuts don't expire until the end of 2010, and Democrats aren't about to tip their tax hand before the 2008 election. But under the cover of zero media attention, Democrats are constructing a budget process that will make a tax increase all but inevitable."

Thank you so much "blue state" Americans (What, you weren't happy being called "reds"?) I'm sure the money will be well spent.

About the New Orleans imagery in Google Maps and Earth

Given that the changes that affected New Orleans happened many months ago, we were a bit surprised by some of these recent comments.

Which comments? Ohhhh, you mean these?:

Citing an Associated Press report from Thursday, the House Committee on Science and Technology's subcommittee on investigations and oversight asked Google Inc. Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt to explain why his company is using the outdated imagery.

"Google's use of old imagery appears to be doing the victims of Hurricane Katrina a great injustice by airbrushing history," subcommittee chairman Brad Miller, D-N.C., wrote Friday in a letter to Schmidt.

Never, I mean NEVER underestimate congressional bungholes ability to be, er, bungholes. They get paid for it too!

Isn't it scary though that people like this have oversight over anything? Is to me. Of course this won't get the traction that the "Tubes" analogy did. Only Republicans get ridiculed for technical incompetence (even though the bad tubes analogy made a valid point while, in this case, they are critical of a company for doing a GOOD job, as long as they can imply that there is some sort of funny-business going on with the evil Bush administration, hey I read it on the Daily Kos!).

ABC's Silent Expert

"Mr. Stephanopoulos doesn't mention his own valuable expertise on the subject of fired federal prosecutors, the kind of expertise that might help place the current mess in context. Mr. Stephanopoulos was the Clinton White House communications director in 1993 when the Justice Department cleaned its slate of all 93 U.S. attorneys, and he was central to the administration's finessing of the episode--just the sort of insider experience, presumably, that prompted ABC News to hire Mr. Stephanopoulos fresh out of the White House in 1996."